


Alone, A Fool

by lurrel



Category: Luther (TV)
Genre: Chromatic Yuletide, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 09:30:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8885680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurrel/pseuds/lurrel
Summary: Justin just wants to take care of Luther.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [canniballistics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/canniballistics/gifts).



In the whole time Justin Ripley has been working with John Luther, he’s never heard of him taking a sick day. Being forced to, maybe, after some kind of impressive injury, but never voluntarily. Never because of something so simple as a cold, certainly.

“Do you think he’s dying?” Benny Deadhead asks him, and Justin isn’t sure if he’s joking or not.

“The thought had crossed my mind,” he says, blowing on his coffee through the small hole in the lid. The weather outside was turning, the few fleeting days of a proper autumn done and replaced with chilly drizzle and cold winds, and Justin was waiting to warm up.

“I doubt it’s all that dramatic,” Schenk says, but he doesn’t look convinced himself. “Everyone gets a cold at this time of year.”

He sniffs. “Besides, I’m sure we’ll all remember how to solve a case without John Luther.”

 -

Luther answers the phone on the fourth ring and Justin bites his lip, thinking maybe he’s woken him up.

“DCI Luther.” There’s a muffled cough, like he covered the phone to be polite.

“Is there anything I can do for you, boss?”

“Wotcher, Justin, but isn’t there some sort of murder you should be solving?”

“I don’t think a 15 minute diversion to get you some lemsip is going to be what makes or breaks this case.”

“You never know,” Luther says; he sounds like he’s smiling. “But seriously, stay away. I’ve got food on its way. I know how to take care of myself.”

“At least order it when I hang up,” Justin says, pulling into to the apartment tower’s parking lot.

“Thanks, nan.”

“I’ll check in on you in the evening, yeah?”

Luther huffs, but doesn’t say no.

“I’ll talk to you then.”

“Ta.”

-

“Luther’ll be back on his feet soon enough,” Schenk says the next day, patting Justin on the shoulder.

“Right, sir,” Justin says. He doesn’t know who Luther is trying to fool -- himself, probably, into thinking he would be well enough to come in the next day. Judging from the sound of their call last night, Luther had at least another day of rest before he’d be fit to work.

Still, Justin misses his partner if only for his keen insight. He’s sure he’ll crack it, but one brain is just slower than two -- there are angles he knows he’s missing. The victims almost always follow some sort of pattern, have some sort of connection. If it’s not the victims, it’s the kills -- weapons, locations, symbolic displays of the bodies. But nothing lines up in the photographs, the casefiles he’s pouring through -- nothing but a signature, antique bullets, from an antique gun. Each kill is from a different jurisdiction, explaining the delay in connecting them.

The photos along the wall are grim and frustrating. He doesn’t want to think of himself as leaning this heavily on Luther. Luther might not always be around, especially if upper brass ever got their say. Justin Ripley is obviously a detective in his own right.

“Go home,” Schenk says, pulling on his own coat. “I am.”

Justin takes another look and wonders how you deliberately randomize a ritual.

-

“Are you running away?” Justin asks when he steps into Luther’s flat. There’s a suitcase in the living room, along with John, wrapped in a blanket staring at the case mournfully. The door wasn’t locked.

“Not until I’m fitter than this, mate.”

“I brought you soup,” Justin says, letting the door swing shut behind him. “You got any clean spoons?”

Luther coughs wetly into a handkerchief. It’s gross, actually -- he hopes it’s fresh.

“You didn’t need to come over here.”

“I’m not your nan, right,” Justin says, dropping the bag of takeaway on the coffee table. “But I am your partner.”

“Right, and that involves you making home visits,” Luther says skeptically.

“If you died, Schenk would be in a right state,” Justin says, heading toward the kitchen to retrieve utensils and plates. He’s no good with chopsticks, but Chinese was the only place he could think of with soup.

“What would I do without you?”

Justin can’t help the fond smile on his face. “Who else would put up with you?”

Luther frowns, just for a moment, at that, but doesn’t comment.

“Looks like you do have someone else looking after you, though,” Justin says when he steps into the kitchen. There’s flowers on the table, deep red tulips, a beautiful, incredibly out of season bouquet. They’re fresh.

He’s not sure if he should feel relieved that John isn’t as isolated as he seems, or concerned that there’s something in his life Justin missed. He wonders if maybe the suitcase isn’t John’s.

“I didn’t ask for those,” Luther says. Justin can hear him rummaging around in the bags of food.

“Jenny come ‘round? Or...new girlfriend? Were you packing for an overnight visit?”

“Which is mine?” Luther asks, managing to both dodge the question and sound huffy at the same time. 

“I said, I brought you soup. The pork with garlic sauce is mine.” Justin steps back into the living room to see John opening his box of rice.

“C’mon, mate, have a heart,” Luther says, but he hands it over.

Justin hands him the spoon.

“So tell me about the case.”

“I’m not sure I have anything new to say. We visited families today, but no links have turned up.”

“Well, you have at least one clue. That’s better than none,” Luther says with a sidelong look.

Justin hums a yes, and starts to eat.

 -

Justin can’t make dinner the next night, because the case finally breaks open.

There’s a hit on the gun, a tiny thread of a connection -- visits to the same restaurant, two months before the murder -- and suddenly suspects are falling out of the woodwork.

He doesn’t have time to worry; he knows Luther understands because it took Justin months to understand after Pell, that it wasn’t an insult, it was a compliment.

- 

Luther doesn’t miss another day of work for the next eight months.

Justin never finds out where he was going, who sent the flowers, and he is pretty sure he’s missed his chance to ask.

- 

It doesn’t come up again until it does, until a tulip appears in the squadroom right on Luther’s desk. There’s a note but no one is quite prepared to snoop. Luther frowns at it but doesn’t throw it away.

\---

This case was busting his balls, and it's over a week until Justin figures it out. 

He figures most of it out. While he was right that the murderer had been right under their nose the whole time, but the motive was different. So really, he’d been wrong, wrong enough that he ends up with a gun pointed at him and no immediate back-up.

He stalls for six minutes, long enough, thankfully long enough that he sees Luther out of the corner of his eye, taking the shot. 

“Oh, DS Ripley,” Luther says, and he’s out of breath, eyes wide, when he flings himself at his partner, grabbing his shoulders.

“Don’t,” Justin says, eyes squeezed shut. “You said not to go, I know it--” 

“It was bloody brilliant, is what it was.” He pulls him close. “We found her in the back, she’s fine, we got here in time.”

Justin’s ears are ringing.

 “I reckon you’ll be ready for a promotion any day now,”

“It’s not that easy to get rid of me, boss,” Justin says, but it comes out shaky, the opposite of how he wants to sound. 

Luther’s eyebrows furrow in concern and it makes Justin feel woozy.

“We’ll get you to the hospital for that graze, alright mate?”

 Justin lets himself be led, lets Luther sit in his room as he gets stitched up, lets Luther take him home.

-

Justin catches a cold. Misses three days of work. Luther is MIA for an entire 24 hours on a case and no one calls Justin until hour 18 and he’s furious, congested and feverish and almost out of his mind with worry. He makes it to the station and they find Luther, it’s fine, they’re all fine at the end of the day.

He shivers as Luther explains to him why he had to take the risk, why he was missing, until Luther say, "Mate, I think we need to get you home."

Ripley lets him call a cab, slumps in the seat, and spends another two days in bed. He's not disappointed, really, that there's no call, but it would have been nice.

-

Luther takes the first vacation he's ever taken a month later. It's approved, all the paperwork done, but he doesn't tell Ripley until the day he leaves, straight from the office, and he doesn't tell anyone where he's going. His suitcase isn't the one Justin saw so many months before.

Justin thinks he's going to visit the tulip-giver, then, meet the owner of that suitcase. He wonders, darkly, if the time has finally come when Luther doesn't come back.

-

John Luther comes back - he always does, doesn't he? And he needs to see Justin as soon as he can, he says on the phone. Justin says okay, wonders about patterns, thinks of how they break and fit back together.

"I brought you takeaway,” Luther says into the door as Justin looks through the peephole in the door to his flat. “We need to talk.”

Justin opens the door and Luther does not have takeaway, has only himself with his shoulders hunched, hands shoved in his pockets. 

“Boss, what--” but Justin doesn’t get to say anything else, because John kisses him.

The press of Luther’s lips is heady, a bit overwhelming in force and heat. He’s broad, leaning down and hands firm around his upper arms. It’s grounding, a surprise then not a surprise.

“I would have let you in without a bribe,” Justin says after they break for a moment. “The door’s always open here.”

"I'm here now," Luther says, smiling wide. "Aren't I?"

Ripley looks up at him, smiles back. He grabs John's hand and pulls him into the flat, to the living room. He wants to pull him into the bedroom, but isn't sure -- is that too forward? It felt right but is it? 

"You are, which really only raises the question of where you  _were_ , you know."

That makes John rub his hand against the back of his head, against the coarse hair there. He looks almost sheepish, big and broad in Justin's space. "I was finishing something."

"Something to do with flower? Tulips, maybe."

John swallows. "Never stop looking for clues, do you Justin?"

Justin shrugs, and takes one of John's hands, running a thumb along his callused palm. "You like that about me, though."

"I do," Luther says, wrapping his fingers around Justin's. "That's why I'm here."

"And how did you know I'd be here?"

"Aside from the fact that this is your flat?" Luther asks, and Justin laughs.

"I meant in a more metaphorical sense."

John squeezes his hand again. "You look out for me."

At that, Justin leans up again, meeting Luther's mouth with his own. Luther sighs, their lips parting together. 

When they break apart, Luther leans down, puts his lips close to Justin's ear, and breathes out, "I think I ought to return the favor."

Justin Ripley lets him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Alone, a Fool, by The Thermals](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDxMrccE2qI). Happy Yuletide, and thank you for your prompt!


End file.
